Gratitude

         Gratitude

What am I grateful for?

Let’s start with the fact that God has kept me around for over 75 years; and, I pray that he will continue to allow me to walk his beautiful earth, meeting more of his children.

Next, I am grateful for my family. When I was twenty-three, God opened my eyes and I saw a high school friend in a new light; I realized that she was the one I wanted to spend the rest of my life with; and so far, that is going well. We also have two children who are very successful in their chosen fields, and are very kind, caring people. God has also blessed me with one dynamic grandson, who just turned sixteen and will be driving in just a few days.

I also have a brother-in-law and two sisters-in-law and a 96-year-old mother-in-law. My own sister and parents have all passed into a world where we all will eventually be.

After years of struggling, I entered the field of education and ended my career as a college professor if writing and literature.

As I look back on my life, I realize that I have been blessed with all the grace that one hopes for. I am also blessed to be a part of a dynamic, faith organization filled with loving, caring people, who have allowed me to be one of its lay leaders. This is a great responsibility, but knowing I have the support of God, I am able to assist in the church’s work to feed the hungry and through my ability to listen, be a prayer minister who hopefully brings the peace of God and His grace into their damaged lives. This is one of my dearest and most loving gifts that God has allowed me to have.

God has also given me the ability to write; and, I pray that my efforts to bring prayerful meditations and poetry to my followers are pleasing to Him and help bring His love to all my friends and followers all around this blue globe we call Earth.

These are just the tip of the iceberg, when it comes to what I am grateful for. Everything I have has been provided by the ability to persevere in attaining the abilities to do all I have done, realizing that I could not have done them alone. The support of my family, particularly my loving wife, and my friends, I have been the backbone to my successes, all under the guidance and direction of a God filled with grace.

I posted this earlier on Facebook:

Gratitude is not a simple emotion or an obvious attitude. It is a difficult discipline to constantly reclaim my whole past as the concrete way in which God has led me to this moment and is sending me into the future. It is hard precisely because it challenges me to face the painful moments – experiences of rejection and abandonment, feelings of loss and failure – and gradually to discover in them the pruning hands of God purifying my heart for deeper love, stronger hope, and broader faith.

My wish today is that this meditation, will spark a desire in all my friends and followers to reflect on their own gifts and how thankful they are for these gifts.